10th Blogiversary!

It’s my blogiversary! A sort of “big” one in the blogging world, a whole 10 years! According to “Gifts by year” sites, the 10th Anniversary gift is tin or aluminum for traditional, and diamond jewelry for modern. Yeah, we’ll stick with diamonds, lol. In honor of my 10th Blogiversary, I made a couple of images but I couldn’t decide which one I liked better. Maybe I’ll put one in my sidebar as a badge. Feel free to copy if you like.

I copied my first post and re-posted it at the bottom of this post. In so many ways, it feels like nothing’s really changed. I actually started blogging on Blogger, but imported all my posts into WordPress not too much later. Back then, WordPress only had a handful of themes, lol. I started with a different blog name, an offshoot of the name my husband was using at the time. He was Darc and I was Ness, and together … yeah, you get the idea.

Back in 2013 we decided to shake things up a bit. Google Reader was shutting down and for some reason I don’t recall, we decided to shift blog gears a little, too. So, new blog-dentities all around.

What have I learned in a decade of blogging? Well, one thing I’ve learned is that a lot of people come and go, and many bloggers took off running when FaceBook came on the scene. And Twitter. Lots of people like the short, punchy update styles of those sites, and blogging seems to require more. Of course, you can do those short update types of posts here and have it automatically forwarded to those sites if you want. I think blogging offers more alternatives for all the different kinds of writers than places like FaceBook or Twitter. I also think blogging offers more opportunities. FaceBook seems more geared toward a community of people you already know, Twitter … well, 140 characters, enough said! But blogging – you can find new friends, include old friends, and find whole new groups of people to join, from anywhere in the world. Short posts, long posts, picture posts, posts in between, blogging can cover all of those. It’s like a one-stop-shop of connecting. And on WordPress, you can even do private posts for those things you just want to write but not necessarily share.

I’ve learned there’s a new crop of bloggers in town, a crop that needs to share who they are and what they cope with. Bloggers who are looking for community, and who use blogging as their soapbox.

I’ve learned that a lot of people are so over that “make money blogging!” thing, thank goodness! Sometimes people will use a blog to promote a product or service, but no one tries to use their blog itself as a money maker anymore.

I’ve learned there are people out there who follow your blog with no intention of ever connecting with you, they’re only looking for a return follow to sell their product and they un-follow as soon as you follow them back.

I’ve learned that some of the best friends can be made through blogs. *waves at friends*

I’ve learned that it’s usually best to just go with the flow on blogging – just blog what you feel. I spent four years blogging every single day. I reached this silly place where I joked that the world would stop if I didn’t blog. but in a weird way, you can over-do this thing. There really isn’t any pressure, no one’s keeping score, no one’s judging your posting productivity, and nothing bad will happen if you don’t post on a certain schedule. I promise.

I’ve also learned that by and large, stats are meaningless. Oh sure, I did the thing with keeping the stats page open all the time just to see if anyone had visited my blog, in the beginning. It’s fun at first. But eventually you realize that you won’t get any new visitors by watching the stats page, lol. Stats pages really are more for businesses who are trying to target buyers and if that’s not you, then stats won’t really serve a useful purpose, other than to see all the neat places that people are from. That, and to find the isp of the person who left a nasty comment and is trying to troll you.

Ultimately, I’ve learned that blogging itself is meaningful. A blog is so much more than just a picture that you might see of someone’s vacation. A blog is someone’s heart on display. It’s all the things they think are funny, the things that hurt them, the things that anger them, the things they struggle with, the things that inspire them, the things that bring them joy, and the things that make them weep. It is their memories, their present situations, and their future-hopes up there for all the world to see. So tread lightly in your comments on someone else’s blog, because hearts are tender, and meaningful, things.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for sharing this journey with me. To 10 more!

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A Meaningful Post …

“Leave a meaningful post,” my husband said to me, after I started my blog. “Define meaningful,” I wanted to ask, but knew better. If you knew my husband you’d know that asking any kind of open-ended question will either lead to a smart-assed retort or a thoughtful reply that we can generate into hours of verbal fun. And I mean that in a good way. My husband gives really good mind.

My son’s pretending to cut my hair (after a trip to the salon today) and the baby wants to nurse, and I’ve only had about 3 hours of sleep. Sleep is meaningful, especially when you haven’t had any. I should know. I think in the last 5 years I’ve only slept about 6 months worth. Life has certainly been eventful, and that’s meaningful too.

This weekend got me thinking though. It’s an anniversary of sorts. My husband and I met face-to-face for the first time over Labor Day weekend. That meeting changed my life, and there’s not much more meaningful than that. One day I might detail how we met. Our coming together is the sort of thing that I’ve only seen in movies and read about in books – it just doesn’t happen in real life, and certainly not in mine, until I met him. It was magical, ethereal, the stuff that dreams are made of, and more precisely, the stuff that dreams made. It was one of the most spiritual events in my life, on several levels.

Labor Day weekend also makes me think of labor. Not the kind the holiday was intended for, great American labor and ingenuity, but labor as in giving birth, and that’s pretty meaningful too, to bring life into the world. I’ve spent years breastfeeding my children and I consider that to be one of the most meaningful things I’ve done. I may not win mother of the year, but I’ve given my babies the best start I could. And I hope that’s meaningful.

I look around our place and see the boxes as we are preparing to move, I see my baby toddling about and my son in his Spiderman costume, and in a way it all gels. This is what life is about. It’s not the big things, it’s the little things, the day-to-day raising of your family, the little gestures of thoughtfulness, making dinner and doing laundry, spending time just hanging out as a family. This is what meaningful is about. Giving meaning to the moments, making them count, making them peaceful and a comfort; keeping, as best we can, bad things from happening. Yes, there are monsters out there, all kinds of bad things that can and do happen, and I guess I’ve learned that as much as we want to make wonderful things happen, sometimes preventing the bad things from happening can be just as much, if not more, meaningful.

Congratulations on ten years – wow! I’m coming up fast on two and can hardly believe how fast it’s gone by. I enjoyed your story, all the detail and key points in blogging. Being honest, I hate to admit I usually skim over long posts, until something grabs me – or doesn’t, but this post was so well written and interesting I hung on every word. Best wishes, Vanessa ❤

Thank you, Roo! I am honored you took the time to read the whole post! I thought about just posting a link to my original post, because I know long posts often aren’t as well received, but I kind of felt like I wanted to “show my work” so to speak, proof that I really had done it, lol. Thank you for hanging in there all the way through! ❤

Happy 10th Anniversary Vanessa!! Good choice on going with the diamond!! Wow your very first post WAS so meaningful…you really stepped up to the plate when your husband said write something meaningful. I love what you’ve learned over the years too! I have meet so many wonderful people who have such fascinating stories that are so enjoyable to read. I too have made some very dear friends who live in Australia, Pakistan, Canada, India…it’s amazing. You’re right, where else can you do that? Not Facebook nor Twitter!! Well here’s to another 10 years…congratulations!! 🙂 Love your site for September too!! xo

Oh! You know, I only see that one when I am on my mobile device. I wondered if it was a WordPress code for the web version like button or something, that little thumbs up or down icon, maybe. I always wondered what it was, too, lol.

Congratulations on 10 years! That is a great milestone. I think that your original post was right on target. We eventually get to a point, hopefully, where we realize that the “little” things are really the “big” things. They are the moments that make life matter.
The beginning of your post is great, too. Blogging shouldn’t be stressful, especially if someone isn’t trying to make it an income-producing venture. It should be fun. It should be fulfilling. We should be able to freely write our hearts. People should be kind in their responses…honest, but kind. There are going to be stinkers out there, unfortunately. If we we’re going to put stuff out for public viewing, we have to accept that it is going to happen eventually. But, that shouldn’t keep us from sharing out hearts and we shouldn’t let it become a chore.
Keep up the great work and happy blog-aversary!.

Thank you, Suzanne! Yes, you are so right, we do have to accept that people are going to be stinkers. I had a post on another blog that generated a lot of hate mail, and I still don’t understand why the simple expression of a feeling/opinion can result in so much backlash. It’s really not hard to click the red X when you don’t like a blog post! lol

Yeah, really! It is easy to just X out of the page. There’s no reason to get nasty if one doesn’t like a post. If there has to be a retort, then they should express their opinions on their own blog, not be rude in someone’s comment box. Expressing disagreement can be done without even bringing the original blogger into play. It is one of the ways suggested in multiple booklets/websites for building blog content, too. I couldn’t do it with my most recent blog disagreement, though. I’m just not willing to stir up that hornet’s nest, at least not right now. So, I put it in a Word document, wrote out my feelings about the situation, and sat on my hands until the feeling to post it passed. 🙂
You’re welcome. Have a wonderful week!

Yes, sometimes you just want to write it and not reveal it. Did you know – you probably know – that on WordPress you can make some posts private, for that very reason. I love that! It’s like that old trick where you write the person a letter but never send it. 🙂

Thank you. 🙂
That’s cool. No, I didn’t know you could do that on WordPress. I’m still trying to figure it all out. At this point, I’m doing good just getting a post to show up when its supposed to. haha

It takes time to get to know the ins and outs of the way it all works. You’ll get it, no worries! And if you have a question about something, I will do my best to help you however I can. 🙂 I’m not a pro or anything, but I’ve learned a bit over the years and I also set up and maintain a couple of ministries on WordPress, too. 🙂

Thank you! I appreciate the offer of help very much. I have a question for you, then. How come there are some folks that I have to keep re-following? It is like my follow isn’t sticking. Do you know why that happens?
What kind of ministries do you have on WordPress?

The un-followed is a new one to me! (Figures, right?) I know of a couple ways to follow people. First, you can visit their blogs directly and click the follow prompt that comes up in the lower right, or you can visit your stats page here https://wordpress.com/stats/insights/%5Byour blog name here].wordpress.com and scroll to the bottom. On the right side, you’ll see a link to your followers and when you click that, it will take you to a page that lists all your followers, with the option to follow them back. Sometimes I’ll use both options, because it seems to take a bit for the direct page follow to generate as having been followed on the stats page. You can force a refresh by hitting the ctrl+F5 keys together to see if the follow was successful, but mostly that takes more time than just following in both places.

I set up and maintain the websites for a couple of Messianic ministries. 🙂 One is a church we attended for a couple years and the other is an outreach ministry.

Thank you. I’ve tried it through the stats page and the follow thing that pops up at the bottom right and, on the pages that have them, the follow buttons in their sidebars. But still, there are several that I have to keep re-following. It is the same ones every time. Too weird.
Many blessings to you and your ministries. 🙂

That is really interesting, and frustrating! I would encourage you to open a support ticket with WordPress, because it definitely shouldn’t be behaving that way! And if it is for you, it probably is for someone else and I’m sure WP would want to address that.

*Waving back* ❤ ❤ ❤
I think every blogger, whether new or old can relate to this and find lots of tips from this post. And I am SO SO proud and blessed to have known you in the world of blogs 🙂 The first post, wow, it was so insightful and moving. And your inferences on the blogging part, I was grinning(stats page 😛 ) and then relating your situations to my experiences and marvelling at how true all this is and as I went through all these emotions, the one emotion which kept growing was the respect for you 🙂 Wishing you a very happy blogiversary and here is to 10 more ❤ 🙂

Thank you sooo much Nessie for all the kindness and well-wishes you shower on me ❤ ❤
Well, the plan IS to stay long on the blogosphere. Let us see what the masterplan by the Lord is 🙂 Love you toooo dearie ❤ *hugs* 🙂

*waves back* 😀
I love your thoughts on blogging. I feel very much the same way. I used to post on Twitter, but I found that many worthwhile thoughts didn’t fit into 140 characters, and it was frustrating trying to squeeze into that restrictive space. Now if I have brief thoughts I post them on Facebook.

Yes, that Twitter, it has its place, no doubt, but for connecting, I think the format just is a bit too tiny to really get the words out. I know you’re on Blogger, and I’m not as familiar with them anymore, but WordPress has these different post “formats” so you can do short, Twitter-style, or Facebook-style, updates if you don’t want to write a long post. Blogging is about writing and connecting, so options are good, I think! 🙂

I know I’m late but I just wanted to wish you and your beautiful blog a happy blogiversary Ness. Ten years is an awesome effort and you’ve obviously seen and experienced lots of changes along the way. I love what you wrote here and feel exactly the same way about my connections, even though compared to you I’m just a baby! So glad to have met you here my friend and I wish you many more wonderful years of blogging. Be happy. Love and hugs to you ♥

2018 NanoPoblano

My theme for this year’s NaBloPoMo (affectionately known as NanoPoblano) is Personal Mottos. I put this together last year for a future A-Z Blog Challenge, but ended up using something else for that, so I thought I would use it here instead. These are mottos which I try to live by, things which color my life and perspective on it. I chose a word a day (except for Sundays) because time is short, you’re busy trying to read other blogs too, and I didn’t want to take up too much of your time, which I thank you for sharing with me! ~Vanessa

This Month: November

The bright butter yellow glow of the chrysanthemum brings joy, light, and cheer to the dwindling days of November. Chosen because of the cheer and joy November birthdays bring throughout the year, the chrysanthemum’s color and perseverance are a beacon of happiness.